Court orders government to compensate victims of junta-era internment camp

Victims of the Brothers' Home in Busan, a concentration camp that operated between 1975 and 1987, at the Seoul Central District Court on Thursday. [YONHAP]

A court issued the first decision ever acknowledging the government’s legal responsibility for the victims of the Brothers’ Home, an internment camp operated by Korea's past military regimes until 1987.

Seoul Central District Court on Thursday ordered the government to pay up to 80 million won ($61,000) in compensation for each year the 26 victims were held captive at the concentration camp.

The victims asked the government for a collective 20.3 billion won in compensation.

The court said the government order used to detain the victims forcibly was unconstitutional and unlawful as it violated several legal principles, including clarity, due process, warrant requirements and excessive prohibition.

Hence, the court ruled the forced detention of the victims was illegal

The judge said that the victim’s human dignity and physical freedom were violated during their incarceration at the Brothers’ Home.

Consequently, the judge concluded that the government bears responsibility for compensating the victims for the psychological harm they suffered.

Set up by President Park Chung Hee in 1975, the internment camp in Busan rounded up and detained individuals considered “vagrants,” which included homeless people, orphans, people with disabilities and even students who protested against the regime.

Approximately 38,000 people were sent to the facility, where they suffered human rights violations such as beatings, sexual abuse and forced labor.

At least 650 people are estimated to have died in the facility during its 12 years of operation.

However, the precise number of deaths remains unclear, as many were secretly buried or their bodies sold to nearby medical schools as cadavers.

BY LEE HO-JEONG [lee.hojeong@joongang.co.kr]